


Some other Metal than Earth

by Canon_Is_Relative



Category: Emma - Jane Austen
Genre: Emma being Emma, Female Friendship, Gen, Gossip, POV Female Character, Parties, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 01:04:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3917461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canon_Is_Relative/pseuds/Canon_Is_Relative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At their annual Christmas party, young Miss Woodhouse confides to her tutor that she believes her sister will soon receive an offer of marriage -- and congratulates herself that she is not so inclined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some other Metal than Earth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [frozen_delight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozen_delight/gifts).



“It could be far worse, my dear,” Miss Taylor said, taking her arm.

 

“Yes,” Emma agreed, allowing herself to be led away. “She could have a sister. Then there would be _two_ of them to captivate the hearts and minds of Highbury. 

 

Laughter reached their ears and she turned to look, in time to see her sister and Mr John Knightley join the group clustered around the elegantly blushing Miss Fairfax. In the weeks preceding her visit to her aunt their circle had talked of little else but that young lady’s advent among them.

 

“If she had a sister,” Miss Taylor said lightly, handing Emma a glass of punch, “perhaps she would not be so captivating. It is her shyness, you know, that gives her such an air of elegance. You do not know how lucky you are, Emma, to have such a companion in this world as your sister.”

 

Emma arched an eyebrow and took Miss Taylor’s hand in hers. “ _You_ are _all_ the companion I need, my dear Miss Taylor. And a lucky thing, too, for my sister shall not be mine much longer.”

 

“Indeed?” Miss Taylor asked, the picture of innocence.

 

“No,” Emma looked around, drawing Miss Taylor closer to the hearth. “I have every reason to believe that Mr John Knightley means to propose to my sister — perhaps this very evening!”

 

“Emma!” Miss Taylor scolded, not quite managing to hide her delighted smile. “At whose doors have you been listening?”

 

“I?” Emma laughed. “My dear Miss Taylor, give me more credit than that. I simply happened to observe Mr Knightley as he drew my father aside. He seemed to be asking him something of great import. What innocent matter might he have to say to papa, that the general company might not hear? No! He was begging an audience after dinner. He means to ask my father’s blessing tonight. More fool him, I say,” she added archly. “He were better to have run off to Gretna in the night than ask my father to wish him joy of taking his firstborn daughter off his hands.”

 

“Emma!”

 

Emma only smiled. “And so, our family circle will be diminished. But it will be to my sister’s very great happiness, so I cannot begrudge it. Though I shall offer a prayer of thanks tonight that _I_ am not disposed that way. How dreadful, to be dependent on the whim of a man for one’s happiness?”

 

Miss Taylor shook her head. “You know little of men, my dear. And little of what you may one day feel in the company of a man who deserves you.”

 

“If he is made of some other metal than Earth, Miss Taylor, perhaps.” Emma took her tutor’s arm again and smiled. “But you and I are made of sterner stuff, are we not? We shall not swoon at a borrowed rhyme or a clumsy compliment.”

 

Miss Taylor only shook her head as new voices came into the room, jovial amid the blast of cold air from the door, and the elder Mr Knightley and Mr Weston appeared a moment later.

 

“Ah,” Emma murmured in Miss Taylor’s ear, as the gentlemen approached Miss Fairfax. “And so the show begins again.”

 

Mr Knightley, indeed, took Miss Fairfax’s hand and offered a gallant bow, but left the pleasantries — comments on the weather and the health of the entire neighborhood; subjects Emma had heard counted and recounted so often since Miss Fairfax arrived that she wanted to scream — entirely to Mr Weston.

 

After a brief but warm greeting to her father, Mr Knightley crossed the room to stand before Emma and Miss Taylor. He took Emma’s hand, pressed it to his lips, and offered a warm smile. “Miss Emma,” he said. “A very merry Christmas to you.”

 

“And to you, Mr Knightley,” she said, pulling her hand from his icy fingers. “And may some kind benefactor gift you with a better pair of gloves.”

 

He laughed aloud and offered his rejoinder, and did not protest at Emma’s insistence that he fetch himself some punch and draw closer to the fire. 

 

Emma shook her head and tucked her hand once more into the crook of Miss Taylor’s arm. “Some other metal than Earth,” she said, smiling.

 

Miss Taylor sighed and Emma laughed, and soon enough church bells were ringing.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Much Ado About Nothing."
> 
> LEONATO  
> Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.
> 
> BEATRICE  
> Not till God make men of some other metal than earth.
> 
> For frozen_delight, who prompted: Emma, "Could be worse."


End file.
